Oxford English Dictionary (OED) "is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You'll still find these in the OED, but you'll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to films scripts and cookery books. " (Trial expires 14 Sept 2011)

Springer E-books.  Access to more than 24,000 English/International language content (except German) eBook titles from 2005 - 2011 as well as book series dating back to 1997 eBook titles. Titles are divided into twelve subject collections ranging from Behavioral Science to Professional and Applied Computing.
(Trial expires Oct 31, 2011)